Nothing could be more unlike the usual known habits and tastes of the Conte Leandro, than such a freak.  But supposing such a whim to have occurred to him, would he have set out on his walk evidently intending to be disguised—­with a cloak wrapped round the fantastic costume in which he had been at the ball?  Was such a supposition in any wise credible, or admissible?

In each of the three cases there seemed also to be a motive for the deed that might be deemed sufficient to have led to it; and from which neither of the parties suspected could show that they were free.

In the case of the Marchese Ludovico, it was the terrible temptation of delivering his family name from ridicule and disgrace, and himself from the prospect of absolute beggary.

In the case of Paolina, it was the madness of woman’s jealousy, wrought to a pitch of desperation by circumstances similar to such as had ere now produced many a similar tragedy.

In the case of the Conte Leandro, it was the cruel mortification of a man whose monstrous vanity was notorious to the whole city.

These were the three hypotheses between which the possibilities of the case seemed to lie to those whose position or means of information gave them any real knowledge of the facts.  But there was a section of the outside public which had set up for itself and preferred yet a fourth theory—­namely, that the prima donna had committed suicide.  The holders of this opinion were mainly women; and at the head of them; was the Signora Orsola Steno.  In an agony of grief, indignation, and despair at the accusation brought against her adopted child, and the arrest by which it had been followed up, she loudly maintained her own conviction that the evil and wicked woman had brought her career to a fitting close by putting herself to death.

“Likely enough she may have endeavoured to entrap the Marchese Lamberto; but not very likely,” old Orsola thought, “that that exemplary nobleman should have been caught by her wiles.  Likely enough she may have plotted to play her last card, by giving the Marchese Ludovico to understand, that the only way to avoid the ruin which would fall upon him by her becoming his uncle’s wife, was to take her himself.  How any such overtures would be received by the noble Marchese Ludovico, all Ravenna ought to know; and at all events she, Orsola Steno, knew surely enough.  And upon that rebuff, and utter failure of her last hope despair had come upon the wretched creature, as well it might, and she had put an end to herself.”

To her, Orsola Steno, the case was clear:  and she only wondered that anybody could be so blind as not to see it.